Life has been interesting to say the least in the past week or so. I’ve played countless games of poker online, made a website, worked at my shitty (literally!) job and had some interesting dreams. Let’s start at the beginning…

I’ve been playing in at least one poker tournament a day online. Don’t worry though, I’m not spending a fortune doing this… I’m playing on the free side of things. When I ran out of money last time, I decided enough was enough and now the only way I’m going to get any money in my account is if I win it in one of these free tournaments. I came pretty close on Friday to finishing in the money. Ha! Out of 2500 players, only the top 220 get any actual money. From 180-220 get 35 cents and that’s where we’re going to focus our attentions. Now, 35 cents isn’t a lot of money, but when you got in for free and you’ve successfully outlasted nearly 2300 other players (not to mention the eerie noise of wind blowing each time you look at your long-since drained real money account), it’s a big deal. Everything was going great. I was playing great, the cards were hitting for me more often than not and I was winning more money than I was losing, steadily building my chip count. A few bad calls and an overly-aggressive player at my table chewed up my chips to the point where I ended up going all in when I didn’t really want to. If I could have made it for one more hand, I would have finished below that 220 cut-off and made 35 cents. Where did I bust out? Right on the frigging bubble. 221. Bah. All I needed was 15-20 more seconds and someone else would have been "Bubble Boy" and I’d be as happy as a pig in shit over winning a quarter and a dime. Oh well… that’s poker for you.

I had a full day off last week so decided to make a website for our Sunday night poker games. The stinking pile of crap that I had up there before just wasn’t cutting it aesthetically for me. Just as I was falling asleep the night before my day off started (Day off Eve?), I had one of those bolts of inspiration that I was waiting for to update the looks of the website. Gone would be the incredibly crappy, uninspired original design and here comes a new and improved website. That lasted a day. As you can see (if you clicked those links) the new one was vastly superior to the original, but I still wasn’t pleased with the results. I kept a few elements from the new site and did it all over again from scratch. Until I figure out a couple more things, I think this is how it’s going to stay… Hmmm… I think I just figured out how I’m going to fix a problem I’ve been having. 🙂

The dream about the poker site wasn’t the only interesting dream that I’ve had recently. Friday evening as I was getting my nap in before work, I had one of those not-quite-asleep yet not-quite-awake super-vivid dreams that blur the lines between fantasy and reality. I was lying in bed on my left side, as I had been for the past 40-odd minutes after my last phone call. (My buddy Allen is right… I should turn off my damn phone when I go to bed.) I feel something jump on the foot of my bed and slowly start to make its way to my head. Now, this was a very familiar thing to me. At least it was WHEN MY CAT WAS ALIVE! I want to hop out of bed and turn on the light, but I can’t move my legs. In fact, the only part of my body that seems to be able to move is my right arm (barely at that – it’s like it was weighted down or I was moving through jello). I slowly sweep my right arm back and feel fur as it slowly comes towards my head. I start to hear the low and steady purr that Oliver used to make as he was coming in for some loving and I’m utterly terrified. What used to comfort me after a long night of work now was the scariest thing on the planet to me. The surge of adrenalin finally snapped me fully awake and I can move again. That was it for attempting to sleep. 🙂 Shades of Pet Semetary… I miss having him around the house, but eek.

Another rather disturbing dream (two actually) that I had was about the current pope. If you know me in real life, then you know that I am in no way a religious man. I haven’t read anything in the news or seen anything on tv (that I’m aware of) regarding the pope in quite some time. Where this came from in my brain is a total mystery to me… In my dream, I’m watching a live broadcast from the Vatican where the pope is giving a sermon. Now, he’s not standing behind a pulpit and throwing out the wrath of God. Nope. He’s trying to reach the young people, so he’s trying to appear more casual. He’s sort of reclined on a chaise lounge type of deal and speaking in plain English. He goes to adjust his position a bit and he’s not at all graceful. In his ungainly thrashings to reposition himself he half rolls over and his robe rides up, clearly showing his ass and balls. The telecast abruptly ends and a couple of news guys are staring incredulously at each other. One says to the other, "You could see his balls." I woke up at this point and thought… What the hell???I’m not sure if it was the same day, only later, or the next day that I had the next dream about the pope. Again, I was flipping through the channels at work and stopped on a news channel like CNN or CBC Newsworld. The reporter was talking about the fiasco with the pope and his balls showing. Footage was shown of the event, with his balls tastefully blurred out. This was all leading up to his next live appearance which was about to happen. Cut to the pope speaking, again sort of lounging around and again seeming uncomfortable. He starts to try to repostion himself again and the same thing happens. This time though, one of his aides convinced him to wear something under his robes. Underwear? Nope. Pantyhose. As the pope is struggling to right himself, the camera seems to zoom in unnecessarily (very unnecessarily), and shows what can only be described as two eggs fighting under a translucent, flesh-coloured blanket. The video feed ends and the two newscasters are sitting at their desk and laughing. That’s when I woke up. Again, I pose the question to you: WHAT THE HELL???

Now about work… I won’t get into the details about my new job at the group home. That kind of scatological diatribe should never have to be seen by the uninitiated. Suffice to say that it’s a lot more involved in personal care than the last group home I worked at. Nah, the big news at work is the ratification of our contract and the possibility of a signing bonus. If everything pans out, we should be getting a $4200 signing bonus with this new contract, as well as a raise in pay. Seeing as I’m in the union twice (full-time with one company and part-time with the other) and pay dues for both jobs, I should be getting somewhere in the neighbourhood of six grand in total. Yeah. Until I have that cheque in my hand, I’m not holding my breath. There’s still a lot of "ifs" and I’m usually not that lucky to get money handed to me. With that kind of coin, I could pay off my car and my loan and start to work on chopping my credit cards down… Within a year or so, I could actually be debt free. Yeah. Not holding my breath on that.